


Hell is for Children

by sksdwrld



Series: Asterisk [7]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Past Child Abuse, Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-08
Updated: 2013-12-08
Packaged: 2018-01-04 00:24:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1074841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sksdwrld/pseuds/sksdwrld
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elliot explores childhood memories with his new therapist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hell is for Children

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "childhood" at openveinwriting.

Elliot got up and went into Pam's office as soon as the other client left. He moved the child-sized chair away from the tiny yellow table and sat down cross-legged at it. There was already a stack of paper and a cup full of crayons and markers waiting for him. There always was.

"Good afternoon, Elliot," Pam smiled and shut the door. "Do you want to sit at my desk? You know I don't mind..."

"No..." Elliot said dismissively and shook the cup before peering into it. At the bottom was a well-used nubbin of black wax and he deftly picked it out, setting it at the top of his paper because, let's face it, he was going to need it. After a moment, he chose Cerulean and Scarlet to accompany it. Those were the default colors. The old standbys. He liked to pick his colors ahead of time, so that he didn't have to stop to think while he was rambling. Optimistically, he fingered a sunny yellow.

"What are we going to talk about today?" Elliot asked.

"I thought you could tell me a bit about your childhood, if you were feeling up to it?" Pam offered.

Elliot's finger strayed away from the yellow and he plucked up Cadet Blue and Smoke. "What do you want me to say? 'I am born. I grew up'..."

"Are you quoting David Copperfield, or Anne Rice? I can never tell with you, Elliot."

"When authors quote authors, it all becomes a bit muddled, doesn't it?" Elliot nudged the crayons into a neat line.

"Indeed it does," Pam laughed softly and Elliot thought she might have an indulgent smile on her face but if he looked now, there was a good chance they'd be done for the day. "Whenever you're ready..."

The thing that Elliot liked about Pam was that she wasn't on a timeline and she didn't have an agenda. She listened to Elliot, letting him meander at will through his own brain rather than trying to drag admissions out of him the way Janice did.

He took up Cadet Blue and began to hatch out a rough shape in the corner of the paper. "I'm pretty sure that my firt bedroom used to be a walk-in closet. It was the onlone in the house that didn't have a window, and the study was attached to it. I had a bed and a small desk, and four shelves with books. Some puzzles. Some plastic animals..." Elliot quieted as he became consumed by the memory and the lines on paper.

Pam cleared her throat after awhile. "Did you have things to draw with?"

Elliot frowned. "No. Crayons in the hands of small boys make for messes and ill-tempered gentlemen," He traded his current crayon in for the black one, pressing hard to cover part of the indistinct blue-grey. He wasn't really looking at the paper anymore and for a moment, his fingers stopped moving.

Daniel turned red when he was angry; the dark color would suffuse up from his neck to paint his face, and even his hands sometimes mottled and shook. His most dangeeous weapon was his left index finger, which was very pointy and hurt when it caught the soft meat just above the collarbone. He'd shaken Elliot a few times and pinched him very hard on the arm once, but Elliot didn't ever recall being struck in anger. Daniel was very adept at using words to cut a person down, even if it was a very small person with big feelings. Pam didn't need to know about that though, because everyone got angry now and then.

Elliot started to move the black crayon again, not so heavy this time, then flicked it away altogether. He took up Cerulean and began a different drawing away from the first. "That's not true. When I was eight, I had a nice set of colored pencils. They came with my anatomy any physiology coloring book."

Pam made a soft sound of surprise. "You had an anatomy and physiology coloring book at eight? They give those to nursing students."

Elliot shrugged. "When I was fourteen, Daniel gave me a very nice artists' cray-pod set and an instructional text on drawing still-lifes. I wasn't supposed to go near the windows though, and fruit bowls and furniture are boring, so I didn't use it much."

"Do you have a happy memory, Elliot?" Pam asked.

His fingers tightened on the crayon and he felt it start to bend, so he let up and clenched his jaw instead. "I was not an unhappy child. I was not abused or maltreated."

"I didn't say you were," Pam said carefully. "I just wanted to know if you had something especially nice that stuck out in your head."

Elliot stopped coloring because he had to concentrate. He closed his eyes and thought of Daniel the way he used to, letting his smiles and the crinkle of his blue eyes wash over him. The way Daniel would cup his chin fondly or chuckle at him if he'd said something particularly witty. The proud look on his face the first time Elliot had beat him at chess. The little gifts and tokens Daniel would bring home from work and give to him. The smell of his aftershave lingering on Elliot's clothes after a great, big bear hug...

"Sometimes in the winter," Elliot said as tears formed in his eyes. "Daniel would shovel snow into the garage and shut the door. I would play in it until it melted. And then he would make hot chocolate and we would sit in front of the fire, or maybe watch something on the television."

"...That does sound very nice," Pam replied. Her tone was the falsely chipper one that was often used to appease children and psychiatric patients. Elliot knew that his memory still didn't warrant the use of the yellow crayon. He wondered if he would ever get to use it.


End file.
